And Then There Were 4

Well, damn.

I don’t even know where to begin.

But I do know that after bearing witness to the greatest NFL Divisional Weekend in the history of ever, I would sum up everything that transpired with two words: “Holy” and “shit”.

Every single game—as in all four; as in if you’re counting on your hand, you’re required to use every finger but your thumb—ended with a walk-off field goal. And for those that don’t understand how extraordinarily rare that is, that’s like 50 Cent sending Ja Rule a Christmas card or me waking up as a pregnant white woman.

These are the type of things that just do not happen. But lo and behold, I can confirm that yes: The entire balance of the universe was thrown into complete disarray this weekend, and only the Cincinnati Bengals, the San Francisco Jimmy Garoppolos, the Los Angeles Self-Saboteurs (I’ll be invoicing y’all for my blood pressure medication), and the Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes’ cybernetic arm lived to tell the tale.

On Saturday, after the Titans’ alleged quarterback, Ryan Tannehill, spent his afternoon doing his best Ryan Leaf impression—he was even kind enough to throw his third interception with 20 seconds left in regulation—Joe Borrow took a glance at the scoreboard, saw the game was tied at 16, and proceeded to do Joe Borrow things. After hitting Pro Bowl receiver Ja’Marr Chase with a 19-yard dime, followed up by a pair of runs, it was time for rookie kicker Evan McPherson to send Derrick Henry and them home.

The Bengals’ Cinderella story continues. But Burrow, who threw for 348 yards despite getting sacked approximately 19,257 times, made it abundantly clear during his press conference after the game that y’all better go on somewhere calling Cincinnati “underdogs.”

“I’m tired of the underdog narrative,” he said. “We’re a really, really good team. We’re here to make noise and teams are going to have to pay attention to us.”

He said what he said.

Elsewhere on Saturday, supposedly there was a showdown between San Francisco and the Green Bay Unvaccinated Liars, but we wouldn’t know because 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans personally ensured that Aaron Rodgers was nowhere to be found.

Yes, Throw Rogan puts up ridiculous numbers during the regular season, but he’s winless against the Niners in the postseason—thanks, in part, to that pesky Colin Kaepernick guy—and has an 11-10 record in the playoffs overall. It’s wild to think that the Packers have had two of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history serve consecutive terms, yet Brett Favre and QAaron have the same number of combined Super Bowl wins as Joe Flacco and…Trent Dilfer.

Oh, well. Such is life.

Also of note, the torrential downpour of slander that Twitter had cocked and loaded for Rodgers after his natural immunity failed to prevent the Niners from giving Green Bay’s offense flu-like symptoms was…whew.

Sheesh.

Adding insult to walk-off field goal injury was the fact that the Packers only had 10 players on the field when Niners kicker Robbie Gould sent their trash asses home.

On Sunday, it was the Tampa Bay Bradys turn to get embarrassed on national television. Except the Rams apparently missed the memo and did everything humanly possible to try to piss off the entire county of Los Angeles by almost fucking off the game.

Center Brian Allen snapped the ball when Matt Stafford wasn’t looking; Cam Akers earned the rap name “2Fumblez,” because he fumbled the goddamn ball twice; Pro Bowl demigod Cooper Kupp got Jamel Dean-ed; and Eric Weddle tried to decapitate Mike Evans and got slapped with a personal foul instead:

As a result of all of this, Tom Terrific—and his merry band of Just Happy to Be Heres—came storming back with a vengeance, erasing the Rams 20-3 lead and miraculously tying the damn game (!!!!!!) with 42 seconds left on the clock.

But before I could hurl a chair at my TV in a fit of blind rage, cooler heads prevailed and fate was like, “Tom, if you don’t go on somewhere with your killer comeback bullshit.”

That’s when Stafford and Kupp began speaking in tongues, linked up for a 70-yard bomb, then allowed kicker Matt Gay to send Brady back to the senior center with no oatmeal cookies:

In the immortal words of Anderson .Paak: “Yes, Lawd!”

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Stafford said. “I mean, we sure let ’em back in the game with a bunch of mistakes on offense. Our defense played outstanding. We’ve got to clean some stuff up, do a little better job in the turnover department.

“This is a tough team, man, this is what we’re all about. Just happy to get a win and keep on moving.”

So is the rest of the city of Los Angeles—provided its residents have any fingernails left to chew on.

And while the weekend was brimming with memorable moment after memorable moment, shit got really real once Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes declared war against his All-World adversary, Josh Allen, on Sunday night.

In an instant classic that featured two of the best players in the galaxy exchanging Earth-shattering haymakers during the game’s final minutes, we were treated to Tyreek Hill imposing his will on the laws of physics:

Allen gift wrapping Gabriel Davis his fourth receiving touchdown of the night:

And the Cheifs breaking the internet by sending the game into overtime with a last-second field goal. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith was all of us:

But even though both Allen and Mahomes were on demon time, once Kansas won the coin toss, you already know what time it was as soon as Travis Kelce took the field:

With Kansas City’s win, the franchise is headed to its fourth consecutive AFC Championship game and gave us a glimpse of the budding rivalry between Mahomes and Allen that’s giving us all Manning-Brady vibes.

“The guys didn’t flinch,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid told reporters afterward. “You talk about an epic game, well, that’s the way the players took it. They had tremendous respect for Buffalo and they knew it was going to be a battle and they kept going.”

We are all witnesses.

Catch y’all next week.